Movie review: 'Kung Fu Panda 2' packs no punch

Trouble has come to bear in “Kung Fu Panda 2,” the much anticipated sequel to the inexplicably popular chop-socky cartoon about an overachieving ursidae getting his kicks in the martial arts.

Al Alexander

Trouble has come to bear in “Kung Fu Panda 2,” the much anticipated sequel to the inexplicably popular chop-socky cartoon about an overachieving ursidae getting his kicks in the martial arts.

Po, the panda in question, apparently isn’t completely happy with his newly won title of Dragon Warrior because the adopted son of a goose is troubled by existential questions about who he is and where he comes from.

I could have spared him the trouble (and, indirectly, the wasted 90 minutes of my life) by simply telling him that he comes from a team of DreamWorks animators, who, at the instruction of their bow-tied bosses, have overextended his welcome by sending him on a quest to find his real parents. Couldn’t he have done this on his own time? Nevertheless, I, and anyone foolishly plucking down $10 on a ticket, get dragged along on a stupefyingly dull 3-D journey into Po’s 2-D past, where a preening peacock (a less threatening villain I cannot think of) holds the key to unlocking the tear gates.

It’s all very moving, or, at least that’s what we’re manipulated into believing once the truth comes out, but the revelation has about as much resonance as a trip to Wal-Mart. That’s because director Jennifer Yuh Nelson and her pack of unbearable writers, Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger, have provided not a clue as to why Po’s identity crisis is of any importance.

I know, I know, the point is to show the little urchins that blood has nothing to do with who your parents are; it’s who raised you, provided you a home and smothered you with love. If any adopted kid doesn’t know that already, they’d have to be pretty stupid. Almost as stupid as Po (again voiced by the annoying Jack Black), who is just now noticing that he was reared by a goose (as opposed to being goosed in the rear?) instead of pandas.

His journey of self-discovery proves to be the usual load of sentimental crap that studios throw at audiences in hopes of making them feel good about wasting their money on seeing an inferior copy of the original. It hits all the familiar emotional notes, too, from the dead mother to the final realization that a goose in hand is better than no parents at all.

But even that is fleshed out only marginally, leaving approximately 75 of the film’s 90 minutes to fill with monotonous 3-D action sequences that all look and feel the same. Or at least the ones you can make out amid the dark and muddy nature of the underwhelming 3-D process.

It’s the writers, though, who obscure the characters, few of whom are given anything to do beyond standing around or throwing the occasional foot or hand at the enemy’s face. That includes Po’s pals from the first film: Tigress (Angelina Jolie in yet another dull performance), Monkey (Jackie Chan), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Crane (David Cross). Why some of them speak in Asian accents and others don’t remains a mystery. Perhaps globalization was an unknown invention of the Ming Dynasty.

Invention, however, is not a part of the “KFP” Dynasty, which is expected to extend into at least three more films. If that’s true, let’s hope that future installments offer up better stories and a villain more compelling than Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a peacock version of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad threatening to rule the world through his development of WMDs.

It’s working, too, because it certainly destroyed many of my brain cells, as I was bombarded with bombs, kicks, socks and chops, all aimed squarely at my cheesy 3-D glasses. But it all fell on deaf ears, as I struggled to get invested in the lives of grossly uninteresting characters, including Dustin Hoffman’s wise old Master Shifu and James Hong’s dumpling-making, panda-raising Mr. Ping.

They all lend credence to that wise, but rarely used phrase that what happens in ancient China, should stay in ancient China.

The Patriot Ledger

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